Looking for Guildies

Looking for more… Recruiting… Mature, dedicated, reliable… they are a lot of the words I have been using lately. As the Guild Leader of MischiefUs, we have had a lot of obstacles over the last few months.

We only decided to rebuild our Guild in August of this year. It was a decision we didn’t take lightly coming from a small Guild mentality. We previously did the 10’s Guild thing on Khadgar our previous server, but after a parting of the ways we joined a larger familiar Guild since we knew a lot of the players from previous years.

Raiding for four nights a week was a big change to raiding a couple of days on the weekend. Some nights I would just be so tired from work that I didn’t really want to spend the next few hours raiding. But I did it, because it was expected of me and it was a good opportunity to get to play with my game partner who currently lives overseas as it’s one of the few times we can actually do something together. But I digress.

So in August we decided to start recruiting again as understandably the weekend times suited my other half’s playtime better. Something that I was all for because who wants to or even be willing to raid until 7am in the morning? I on the other hand became quite used to raiding in the afternoons albeit over the weekends and late enough for us that it fell between a leisurely lunch and early dinner.

Our first attempts at recruiting, attracted more alts than mains. Understandably so since most raids happen in the evenings. Upon reading the applications of our potential recruits through the Guild site, it was becoming more clear that a lot of people were looking for a place their alts could raid. Perhaps only getting on around the times to raid. At first we didn’t mind this as, among other things, we needed the numbers. If they could give their all during our raids, we didn’t mind if they played their mains, alts or poodles. (Well maybe not the poodle part).

Pugging the rest of the numbers which was probably half the raid at first became a tedious chore as the whispers we received sounded like ones who only wanted to farm trash or get carried. Some of our puggers were also very fond of the raid times, as we were told this frequently from many people but the fact was we weren’t looking for constant puggers; we wanted mature and reliable people in the Guild who could give 100% whether it was a progression attempt or farm night.

I understand that quite a few members raid with different Guilds on their mains or alts but it’s important to note that for quite a few of us, this is our only proper raid time (less LFR) so we want each raid day to be successful.

We’re also not a Guild in the habit of inviting people without checking them out. Being a small Guild, applications are the first step in determining what kind of person they are. Those that say it’s too much trouble to fill in an app or want an instant invite doesn’t really sound like the person we’re looking for. For a Guild of our size, everyone needs to get along. If there’s no cohesive group then there’s Guild Drama and it’s obvious. Bringing this type of mood into the raids in particular is not constructive and should be taken offline.

We’ve had quite a few in the past few months who have joined the Guild and then left without a word. Some of those were within a week of joining. Even with the nice looking app and all the checks made, including a verbal interview on Mumble it’s not always a guarantee. I accept that. But for those who made a realm +/or faction change, I guess they had the money to burn.

I don’t think we would have come as far as we have if we didn’t set our standards where they currently are. Sure it’s been slow going in terms of recruits but it works. Slowly but surely wins the race, right? Even trying the various methods like advertising through Twitter, the Guild and recruitment forums and in trade chat have proved fairly successful but honestly, going through weeks and months of sitting in Org and spamming the recruitment ad every 15mins or so is not my idea of fun. But still, it had to be done.

Even now, we are still having to Pug one or two each week which is getting very tiresome. Recently getting a couple of new recruits we’re still waiting to see if they pan out. Fingers crossed for that at least.

Admittedly we did use rankings as a tool because we felt we had to. With nothing to really go by except for looking us up on Armory and checking out our gear and progression could only go so far when we hadn’t been tested as a Guild before. But even that took some time as we arrived late in the game, just starting Firelands when a lot of other Guild were already working on Heroic modes. It also took a while to get things working smoothly, involving a lot of discussions before the boss pulls since most people came in with varying experience and success.

All-in-all, it’s been a long strange trip (nice name for an achievement imo) and I can only look forward in the hopes that things will be somewhat easier soon.

4 Comments

Lon

December 8, 2011

Welcome to Dath’remar Cymre.
Recruitment on Dath (at least via the LFG tool) as you said, seems to be mostly alts looking for another raid home, or requests are seemingly sent just based on your guild level. Perhaps I hold a somewhat slanted view of the LFG tool but that’s how it comes across to me.
With all of the guilds competing for fresh blood, and an overall loss of community building with the introduction of LFR and LFD, getting good quality recruits is hard going.

“Those that say it’s too much trouble to fill in an app or want an instant invite doesn’t really sound like the person we’re looking for.”

I cannot agree more on this point. Each of the requests to join that I have received have been pointed to our guild forum to apply. If you are unable, or unwilling to post an application (even to a casual raiding guild), how willing would “you” be to follow directions or even suggestions?

Good luck with the recruitment and I hope that MoP brings with it a bunch of new, high quality players.

I know how you feel, Cymre. It’s even worse if you can’t provide something like the possibility of raiding. We’ve gotten one recruit in Higher Authority in the past six months, and he left without a word only hours after telling me he liked the guild. I suspect he found greener pastures in a higher level guild. I think guild levels really hurt new guilds a lot. The perks that would really help a new guild out don’t come until the higher levels.

Hopefully, you will get momentum – if not this patch, then in the next expansion!